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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I don't have TV so I usually don't watch award shows, but I happened to stumble across the video of whatever music awards the Kayne West/Taylor Swift fiasco occurred in. No need to comment on Mr. West's behavior, the rest of the world has that covered, I wanted to add my 2 cents with a comment about Beyonce, who pulled that situation out of the gutter with a level of grace and poise that we don't see much anymore these days.

In case you are one of the 3 people on the planet who is not talking about this, here's a brief synopsis: Kayne West grabbed the microphone out of Taylor Swifts hand during her acceptance speech, and yelled something like "Beyonce made the best video ever blah blah".

Later when Beyonce was on stage, in what must have been a very uncomfortable situation for her, she simply said that she knew how much it had meant to her to get her first award nomination and then called Miss Swift back out on stage so "she could have her moment in the sun."

Monday, September 14, 2009

All that needs to be said about Ted Kennedy is that he died without ever telling the truth about what happened at Chappaquiddick. I'm sure he felt that his legacy was more important than some stupid dead girl at the bottom of a river. Awesome moral compass, dude.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

So I had my husband take a look at my blog to see what he thought about my last posts - and he was supportive, but did comment that my blog was becoming increasingly political. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, since it is important for everyone to participate in the political dialog in a democratic society, but on the other hand I don't want to be yet another political blog rant.

Plus, I realized that my last post was interpreted to be me calling our government communists, which was not my intent. Just for the record, I do not agree with those who say Pres. Obama is a Socialist - and I would like to see a health care bill succeed.

So what motivated my last posts?

It all started two summers ago when we were driving up to the mountains. We were listening to the radio and happened to tune into an interview with one of the authors of The 4th Turning. In this book the two historians make a pretty good case for a coming crisis in the US. I don't want to try to explain their entire thesis, so let me just say that their evidence and explanations convinced me to the extent that I was seriously bummed out for a month.

Then the financial crisis happened and subsequent events and attitudes seem to me to all point to a looming crisis. So I am worried. It didn't help matters that Costco started selling a year's worth of freeze dried food. The book doesn't say where the crisis will come from, they don't claim to have a crystal ball, but it does say that it will certainly come - as it has with surprising predictability throughout US history. So I am watching and waiting for a sign - and preparing.

I really hope they are wrong, but history says otherwise.

The other thing that happened recently that has me thinking about communists, is that while organizing my closet I came across the family history that my Grandfather wrote before he died. Most of what he wrote was about their lives before they came to the US in 1951 - my father was 15 or 16 at the time. They had spent the last 10 or so years in Germany - my Grandfather was a sort of diplomat from Bulgaria - and thus had had the pleasure of being right smack in the middle of a really nasty war.

Oddly enough, the fact that they were in Germany at that time saved their lives because when the Soviet army rolled into Bulgaria, they rounded up every government employee they could get their hands on, and executed them. In all, around 3,000 bureaucrats were executed. My grandfather worked in the embassy in Berlin at the time and with the regime change in Bulgaria, all of the embassy staff members were recalled back to Bulgaria. Of the 30 or staff - 4 refused to go back, one of them being my grandfather, another the ambassador, and two others who disappeared. Those who went back were shot.

So if I am a little hyper anti-communist, that is probably the reason why. What with all the rhetoric and blah blah Gingering out there in the politosphere, it is easy to forget that sometimes really bad things do happen. The thing that struck me most from reading what my grandfather wrote, was how random and arbitrary events in people's lives could be the deciding factor of whether you lived or died. And how positively screwed the ordinary person can be if caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I am worried about the safety of my family given what I think is coming. That is why I have politics on my mind - I don't consider myself either a liberal or a conservative - if you ask me, everyone should be both depending on the issue within the context of society at the time.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Note: I am not saying here that I think the US has turned or is turning communist. I wrote this because I have read several articles that IMHO glorified communism, and because there is a new generation of young adults who have no living memories of the Iron Curtain. September 17th, 2009.

My grandmother used to say:

"If you aren't a liberal when you are young, you have no heart but if you are still a liberal when you are old, you have no brain"

I want to write down a few things that I have witnessed so far in my life, so I don't forget them and because it seems to me that a great many pseudo intellectuals out there are once again romancing the Bolshevik.

Let me say first that I understand somewhat the allure of the revolutionary - I own a tank top with a Che silhouette imprinted on the front. A handsome guy, in a beret with a faraway look in his eyes, seemingly intent on helping the poor and downtrodden of the world through righteous struggle. To many, the life represented by the Che is far more appealing and exciting than that of the establishment, which usually involves alarm clocks, a steady job and considerable amounts of personal restraint and self control. (If you are still unclear on my meaning, allow me to refer you to the Abba song "Fernando" - that should clear things up.)

Think about romance. Romance is wonderful - we all yearn for it, seek it out, pay money to online dating websites to find it. Then when you meet someone you really like, the first six months or so are just sheer heaven - sometimes you feel that you could just live on love alone. And perhaps sometime during this whirlwind romance, you decide to marry. This extends the romance a bit as you plan your dream wedding to commemorate your perfect and unique love. After the magical event, you honeymoon for awhile until, inevitably, there is a knock at your door and when you open it, you meet reality again. You are surprised because you thought reality would never visit you again as he was being kept busy by the Jones down the street.

And then, all of a sudden, that pesky reality is seemingly everywhere - the postman brings several realities a day in the form of love notes from the gas company, the electric company, the bank, an insurance company or two. To make matters worse, your best friends Mastercard, Visa and American Express who supported you through your whirlwind romance and wedding are starting to take on a less supportive tone in their correspondence with you, and they don't seem to want to accept even a drop of your "love" as payment. It slowly dawns on you that it may not actually be possible to live on love after all. Your stomach makes a funny noise and you realize that you want to put something in there - like food.

Hopefully you have chosen well and your new spouse has already been introduced to reality and is adept with dealing with him and thriving in a world where reality rules. Or perhaps you have not and the love of your life refuses to even acknowledge reality and when confronted with the droppings that reality sometimes leaves behind, attributes their existence to something else.

Or maybe your spouse will start to blame you for the growing mess that reality can make when he is ignored. Soon the two of you are arguing every day, the garbage is piling up because the trash company didn't accept love as a form of payment either and simply broke up with you instead.

So you tell the deadbeat to go get a job and he goes through the motions of looking for a job, but because every single person in the world is out to get him, he never actually gets one. You, on the other hand were able to find employment so you go to work every day to earn some money to send to the trash company, the electric company, the gas company and to your old friends Visa, Mastercard and American Express in the hopes that they will once again be your friends.

However, when you look at your online bank account, you realize that at least half of the money you earned has been withdrawn, and with a little research you discover that your deadbeat husband has been spending it on other women. You threaten to leave him and he beats you up and locks you in the basement. He keeps you there until you promise to be good and that you will not try to leave.

You go get another job and on your way to work you notice he is following you to make sure you keep your promise. He takes full control of the money you earn and pays the bills while telling you how grateful you should be because he is supporting you and keeping a roof over your head. He opens all the mail and reads it first - including your email - to make sure that you aren't plotting an escape or some other means to get out from under his control. He knows you are a troublemaker so he limits the places you can go and who you can see.

You have to go to elaborate lengths just to meet your best friend for a cup of coffee. You walk to the Starbucks (you no longer have a car - he took it away and uses it himself or lets one of his girlfriends drive it - after all - they don't try to leave him) and when you arrive at the Starbucks you notice the name has been changed to your husband's name and that they only sell one type of coffee - which you have to drink black because there is no sugar or cream. When you ask why there is no sugar or cream you are told that you should be grateful because you only have to pay a nickel for your cup of coffee.

In fact, coffee is dirt cheap everywhere you go. Coffee is also plentiful everywhere you go -as are flour and brown socks. You go to store after store after store to find the shelves stocked full with coffee, flour and brown socks - but not much else. The clerk tells you there was some milk and sugar earlier that day, but people had waited in line for hours to get it and it they had sold out within 15 minutes.

He tells you to try again tomorrow - but to come early if you want to buy anything but coffee, flour or brown socks. So you get in the habit of getting to the store early every day and waiting in line. You soon start waiting in lines just because there is a line forming - who knows what item you may be able to purchase!

This is now your life. You will always have plenty of coffee, flower and brown socks and it won't cost you much at all. Who knows? Maybe someday you will get lucky and will score a pair of blue socks too! After all, variety is the spice of life!